Can't see internal HDD

[bushyiii]

Friend dropped off a Dell Desktop with WIN10. After booting a usb iso of LM20.3 Xfce I don't see the internal HDD. When I didn't see the HDD in Thunar I tried gparted & sudo blkid in terminal. Nothing shows the internal drive.

Do I need to something within WIN10 to expose the drive to Linux?

[Larry78723]

Go into Win --> Power options and turn off Fast Startup. When it is shut down with fast startup enabled, it is basically in sleep mode.

[JeremyB]

Please use post reply to reply to the topic
From the OP

Sorry, I don't understand your suggestion.
I'm able to boot to my linux usb iso and be working in Linux. It's while I am in Linux that I cannot see the internal HDD. When I do the several terminal commands I mentioned all I see is the USB drive and it is listed as SDA. All that shows up in gparted is my 8gb usb attach flash drive.

[bushyiii]

Go into Win --> Power options and turn off Fast Startup. When it is shut down with fast startup enabled, it is basically in sleep mode.

Sorry but I don't understand your reply.
The problem isn't fast startup, the problem is once I boot from my USB attached flash drive and am working within Live Linux I cannot see the internal HDD. That's why I showed the terminal commands that should have reported on all the drives, e.g. sudo blkid and also that gparted only shows my 8gb flash drives as SDA and nothing else.

Nothing I could think of exposed / displayed the internal drive. Hope that helps explain the issue better.

[Flemur]

Go into Win --> Power options and turn off Fast Startup. When it is shut down with fast startup enabled, it is basically in sleep mode.

Sorry but I don't understand your reply.

Boot windows and run Larry78723's suggestion in Windows. Shut down, and then boot the LM20.3 Xfce USB.
(I'm not sure it's the solution but it can't hurt; "fast boot", etc, in windows causes many problems using windows disks in linux)

[bushyiii]

Removing fast boot had no effect. Trying the desktop install script provide the error that my 8gb flash drive is to small for an install, i.e. installer doesn't see the internal 1gb HDD.

[bushyiii]

I think I may know what's happening but not how to cure it. Every time WIN10 starts it tries to do an update, it gets to 56% and fails and states it is reverting the changes. I'm guessing that it is somehow protecting the drive so it can try doing the update and the next reboot.
I tried pausing the update process using Windows troubleshooter but WIN10 stated pausing isn't permitted. So I am re-downloading all WIN10 updates and hope they can be installed correctly and then maybe the HDD will be visible to the Linux install process.

[AndyMH]

Check your BIOS settings, for mint to be able to see your sata drives you need the sata mode set AHCI. It is probably set RST. Note if you find it (and some manufacturers make it v difficult to get at) and change it to AHCI win will not boot, you have to modify win first:
https://support.thinkcritical.com/kb/ar ... de-to-ahci

If this is a recent model Dell, you may find the edge edition of the iso works, it has a 5.13 kernel which seems to fix the problem for some people.

Another other thing to check, in win run its disk management utilities - is the internal drive set up as a dynamic disk?

Boot your install stick and post the output from inxi -Fxxxrz, how-to here:
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=364929&p=2119362&h ... l#p2119362
Tells us about your hardware.

[bushyiii]

I explained to the desktop's owner the WIN10 issues with repeated failed updates on every start-up and he said just blow WINDOWS away. So after 6 hours fighting this dog I have to pull the drive to gain access to it from my LINUX machine with a USB HDD interface attached. Then I can format it, boot my LINUX flash drive and install LINUX on his HDD. Once re-installed on his desktop I expect everything will work.
Thanks to everyone trying to help. So thankful for LINUX and its great community.
Frankly I don't get how people deal with these WINDOWS update issues ;-(